Piano Music
by thingstogoandplacestodo
Summary: Arabella Figg remembers.
Distant strains of piano music drift in through the open window, dancing on the air til they reach an old lady sitting in a rocking chair by a fireplace. The fire casts a warm glow over the yarn wandering across her lap and glints off of needles that still as she lifts her head to hear the music. She almost fancies that she can see it, pastel shades of petal-pink and peach and shimmering aqua fluttering in the air. The notes fall like rain, slate blue drops and sharp copper tiles, peaceful trickles off of rooftops and gutters. Rooftops… the old lady sighs, remembering.

"Come on!" He says, holding a hand out, his grin a flash of white in his dark face. "What, are you scared? It's safe, I promise. Look." He takes a step over the shingles of the roof beneath his feet, then another, and then he's tap-dancing.

You smile despite yourself, and gingerly follow, holding your skirts carefully up in one hand as you clamber out the narrow window. One foot touches the roof, then another, and now you are standing on the roof. You can see all of London, almost. The sky is dark with clouds, but it's not yet raining and a chill wind whips your skirts and hair about wildly, but his hand is warm in yours and the wild weather only thrills you. You turn to him, eyes shining, and he kisses you gently on the forehead just as it begins to rain and a drop falls, then another, tinkling on tiles like piano music…

The old lady sighs, and lifts her needles again. They move slowly, guided by wrinkled, careful hands whose deftness has been stolen over the years by the ever-nimble fingers of age. The scarf grows and the fire burns and she rocks in her chair, and then the distant piano music starts a very familiar tune.

Sunlight glints off of water, but you can't see it through your closed eyes. Spots of shadow and light dapple your vision even through your eyelids, and your face is warm from sun though your back is damp and cool on the wet ground. Rough flute music winds its way around you and into your mind, dappling your hearing with beautiful patterns as the leaves above do your sight. A particularly bright note catches your attention, and you open your eyes. He leans his lanky frame against a huge tree, his eyes closed as he focuses on his fingering, and you giggle as he fumbles a note. His eyes open at the sound, and he looks at you with all the music in the air contained in his eyes…

The piano music is too loud. It brings to mind sweet memories, but they are better off forgotten. Unshed tears linger in the old woman's eyes, and her fingers have been still for some time. As the piano music trails off, she sighs, lifting her knitting once again, but now her fingers are slower still and they frequently pause as her gaze goes somewhere distant and she is lost in thought.

"Sarah? Sarah! Snap out of it," he says. "I swear, you're always lost in your own little world…" You jump, startled. Has someone been calling you? You look up, and there he is, eyes bright as always, but now their customary sweetness is annoyed. "You weren't even listening, were you! Sometimes… sometimes you just…"

You look down, apologetic. He sighs. "It's alright, I suppose… it's just… I want to feel listened to, you know? Is it so much to ask that my own beautiful wife listen to my stupid little sentences once in a while?"

You stand and wrap your arms around him. "Of course," you mouth, and though he can't see the motion of your lips where they are buried in his shoulder, he can feel it. He shivers and hugs you tighter.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," he says. You don't ask what for.

Now she sighs, stretches, and pushes aside her knitting. She rises creakily, groaning, and takes slow steps towards a dark wooden chest, kneeling to open it when she reaches it. She fumbles with the latch for a minute or so before it clicks, and she lifts the lid to reveal bundles of papers within. She sifts through them, finally pulling out one tied with a raspberry ribbon. She holds it to her paper-thin cheek for a moment, inhaling the scent of old paper and memories, then cautiously pulls the ribbon off and unrolls it. She once knew the words, has long since committed them to memory, but her memory is not what it once was. That, too, has been touched by the icy, envious eyes of age. She skims the paper, noting the careful, round letters of someone new to the art of writing.

The envelope arrives suddenly. It's been weeks since the last, and you haven't known whether to dread or hope for a new one; it's been so long, you must hear from him! But it's been so long, what if it's bad news? What if he's lost, or captured, or… or…

You mind refuses to form the word, but images rise unbidden. You picture him falling under an onslaught of arrows, his body riddled with holes, or blue and twisted from drowning at sea, or grown skeletally thin in a dungeon. Your hands tremble above the envelop, but resolutely you slit it and draw out a paper. _Dear Arabella,_ it reads, _I hope this missive finds you well…_

You shudder, your breath released all of a sudden in a gust of relief, and laugh out of shock and wonder. Your heart is in a thousand fragmented pieces of joy, and you put aside the letter to read later. For now, it's enough that he's safe.

Safe… the word echoes through the old woman's mind. Safe. If only he truly had been… she pushes the memory of the letter that followed out of her mind. The letter falls from her still hand, and abruptly she pushes back the chest, rising, but she is stalled by strains of music drifting once again through the window. This time they are stormy and dark, loud and violent, and she is taken back to a time when the din in her head was enough to surpass even the strength of this song.

You sit by a window, slowly stroking your black gown, not feeling how soft it is against your fingers. The hard window sill beneath you doesn't register at all in your mind, occupied by the tumultuous feelings which have been stirring within you ever since the news reached you. You strive desperately to remember the better times, the times when he'd been alive and laughing and tap-dancing on rooftops, but now he is dead and gone and the sweetest memories are bitter grapefruit in your mouth. His dead has twisted everything, and now all you see is as dark as the dress you wring between your fingers.

The music calms, and she is pulled back to the present. Slowly, tremblingly, the old lady reaches down and lifts the bit of parchment of the floor, carefully re-rerolling it, lovingly wrapping the ribbon around it once again, and replacing it in the chest. She rises again without closing the chest, and returns to her chair at the fire, but she doesn't resume knitting. Instead she looks at the pictures on the mantel. In the first, she is smiling and laughing with the same dark young man, and in the second he stands solemn in uniform, but after that he is replaced by a thin, nervous-looking man. The pictures proceed, from a wedding photo where she stands with a sad, sweet smile beside the nervous man, to toddlers playing on a lawn, to excited young children preparing for school and swimming and growing up. The old lady sighs, looking at them fondly. They are all passed on now, and she is alone.

She looks across the room, notices the open chest, and stiffly rises to close it, but before she is halfway there she startles, clutching her chest, and falls to the ground. A minute or two later she can feel herself rising, higher and higher above her body, through the ceiling. Distant flute music calls to her. She can see faintly now a tall white wall with faces peering over it, waving to her, and there is one child and there another, and there the thin nervous husband, and they wave and she feels like her heart might burst out of her body with joy at seeing them only it can't now, can it, it's too late for that, and she has never felt this happy in her life. And then behind them, running toward the wall, she sees _him_ , that same bright grin spreading across his face, and finally she smiles and begins to run towards her family.


End file.
